So Christmas is coming up, which means we’ll be eating lots of fatty food, drinking lots of sugary booze, and the only running we’ll be doing is to and from the shops!

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What that means for many people is that, come January, we’ll be diving into crash diets and crazy exercise regimes in an attempt to ditch the festive weight and embrace the ‘New Year New You’ mantra espoused by every glossy magazine and Instagram fitness guru on the market.

If this sounds like you then please don’t think I’m judging – I’ve been there many times over!

The New Year’s resolutions, the January good intentions, the February slump… yup, these extreme fitness regimes seem doomed to fail before they’ve even begun and there’s a very good reason for that: inconsistency.

You see here in the Wealthy West we take an ‘all or nothing’ approach to nearly everything in life, which means that our diet and exercise habits aren’t actually habits at all, but a see saw of excess and deprivation and guess what – extreme behaviour is not sustainable, which means inconsistency is inevitable.

The problem is that we want it all: the pleasure of over indulgence without the weight gain; the delight of a healthy body without the effort. Well I’m here to tell you that it never worked for me and it’s not going to work for you!

However, it’s not as bad as it sounds in fact, if you adjust your perspective, it’s actually pretty brilliant. You see in a funny way you can have it all by embracing a new mantra: MODERATION.

If you start right now, in the run up to Christmas, you can avoid the heartache (and all the other aches) of an extreme fitness regime by simply being moderate.

It goes something like this:

Don’t run yourself ragged at the gym when you’re busy prepping for a family get together

Do take 15 minutes out from the family to go for a nice, peaceful walk

Don’t steer clear of the mince pies because you’re scared of putting on weight

Do stop at just one mince pie and swap the brandy butter for single cream

Simple isn’t it?

By moderating our behaviour and balancing our eating with gentle exercise we can minimise the ‘damage’ done in December and give ourselves a head start for January. I’m not going to tell you secret to losing a stone a week and I’m not going to give you free reign to stuff yourself sick till January the first – what I am going to say is this:

Enjoy yourself this Christmas but remember that actions have consequences. Take care of yourself and your body for the next few weeks and I guarantee that you really will have your best New Year yet.